Wellness

Wellness

Be Well. Live Well.

Many of our patients come to see our chiropractor to address a specific pain symptom such as back pain, neck pain or headaches. While our chiropractor will address each patient’s specific condition with chiropractic care, we often find it helpful to “coach” our patients towards achieving a healthier lifestyle. For example, there may be certain activities that you should avoid or do differently to prevent yourself from unintentionally aggravating your particular health challenges. The goal of including lifestyle advice with a chiropractic care plan is to help each and every patient achieve the fulfilling and happy lifestyle they deserve, one that is full of the activities that are enjoyed most. We recognize that every single one of our patients is a whole person, and we use our expertise to help them reach total health and wellness.

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Wellness Essentials

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Restoring the natural curves of your spine helps to maintain proper nutrition to your discs, which improves posture and range of motion.

Depending on your age and the condition of your spine, your wellness doctor may recommend you use tools to help reduce spinal degeneration due to long-term spinal misalignment. Devices such as a Posture Pump, Cervical Rolls, Spinal Fulcrums, Spinal Traction and The Posture Right by Neck Orthotic can help reduce spinal decay and in many cases actual increase the health of your spine by helping to restore the natural curves of your spine. Restoring the natural curves of your spine helps to maintain proper nutrition to your discs improving your posture and range of motion. People regularly report that these types of tools help them to reduce pain and increase mobility.

Experts suggest that proper alignment of the spine helps to reduce the rate of spinal degeneration, which can have a variety of overall positive health benefits. In addition, we have all seen what people look like whose posture worsens with aging, and there is little that can be done to improve posture once decades of damage and neglect have set in. If you are concerned that you don’t want to look all hunched over when you are older, now is the time to begin to care for your spine starting by reading more below.

A Good Mattress

Most people spend approximately one-third of their entire life lying in bed. The quality of your mattress can make a huge difference between waking up feeling refreshed and waking up in pain. In fact, old worn-out mattresses are an extremely common contributor to chronic back and neck pain. Good health and sleep are closely linked. Just as we improve our eating habits for better health, we should also improve our sleep habits. Good sleep not only reduces back problems, it also helps to prepare us for a more productive day. If you think that your mattress may be past its prime, here are some tips to help you select the right mattress for you:

There is no single mattress that works well for all people. Look for a mattress that is adjustable in firmness and support for you.

Find a mattress that has proper support for good sleep posture. Good sleep posture is nearly the same as good standing posture, with the ear, shoulder, hip and ankle all in alignment. This will require different levels of support for different parts of the body.

Mattress firmness and support are not the same. Mattress firmness describes comfort and conformability. Look for a mattress that is comfortable.

Look for a mattress that manages temperature and moisture.

Cervical Pillow

There are a variety of different types of pillows that are made of different grades of foam and have custom curves designed into them to support your neck. If you are like most people, you sleep on your pillow for six to nine hours every night. Shouldn’t you sleep on something that will help you maintain your good health, not something that will slowly continue to allow your posture to get worse and worse over the years?

Exercise

Home exercise equipment can be a huge benefit when it comes to a crowded schedule that leaves little room for fitness.

In today’s busy world, finding time to exercise can be a real challenge. Home exercise equipment can be a huge benefit when it comes to a crowded schedule that leaves little room for fitness. Consider exercising while watching television or as a warm-up before leaving for work in the mornings. Without the hassle of going to the gym, adding exercise to your daily routine at home may make getting in shape a lot easier.

Here, you’ll find useful information about exercise equipment, from buying advice to maintenance to what types of equipment are best for you. There is a tremendous variety of equipment on the market designed to help you exercise more effectively, and we have collected some of our favorites in these articles.

BOSU/Disc

A great way to both work on strengthening the core muscles that wrap around your waist and support your spine and improve your balance and coordination is with a new workout tool called a BOSU which stands for “both sides up.” On one side it is a half of a balance ball on the other side it is a flat surface.

This is a great tool that allows you to complete a variety of different workouts. Inflatable discs or foam pads are another type of workout tool to exercise your nervous system and improve your balance and coordination. This is a great way to reduce your risk of injury as you age. Many age-related injuries are due to falls because of poor balance and coordination.

Core Trainer

The Core Trainer is an innovative, effective piece of exercise equipment from Panasonic that allows you to sit down and perform low impact exercises that help lead to high impact results. This is made possible by innovative counter-balance exercise technology, which constantly moves you off your center of balance, forcing you to use your thighs, back, stomach and other core muscles to re-gain your balance. This reaction efficiently and effectively maximizes the building of core body strength while minimizing body and joint stress, as well as impact and aerobic demand.

Exercise Ball

These days an exercise ball is a great tool to have and use at home. You can do a thorough workout on it, you can stretch on it and you can use it as a desk chair. Make sure to get the correct size. There are great videos that you can use to learn basic exercise routines.

Foam Roll

A foam roll is exactly what it sounds like a long roll made of foam which can be used to help with balance and coordination exercise, to help you stretch your muscles and to “roll out” the stress and tension in your muscles in order to release the lactic acid that builds up in muscles and causes pain.

Personal Trainer

Another great way to get results is to make sure you are getting expert advice and supervision. A personal trainer is a great way to ensure that you are exercising safely and effectively to accomplish your goal. All exercise is not the same; some people want to build more muscle mass, some people want more tone and definition, some want to lose weight. All three have different strategies. You can speak with a wellness coach to provide a routine and information, but a personal trainer will be in the fitness center, at the wellness center or at your home with you watching your body mechanics, showing you the best equipment to use and most importantly pushing you towards maximizing results.

Power Plate

The Power Plate’s Advanced Vibration Technology is the most innovative health and fitness tool in the industry today. Backed by over 40 years of scientific research, vibration training enables you to achieve a higher level of fitness faster than traditional methods. The Power Plate produces a vibration that is transferred to the body. This mechanical stimulus produces a stretch reflex eliciting involuntary muscle contractions. The Power Plate has been used extensively by top athletes and is now widely accepted all over the world by medical, rehabilitation and health and fitness professionals.

Resistance Bands/Weights

In order to keep your muscles strong, you must stress them by resistance training. Dumbbell weights or resistance bands are great ways to strengthen your muscles. Resistance bands are great because they are easy to travel with. Take them on your next business trip and you won’t miss a workout wherever you are.

Videos, Books, & Internet

With today’s technology there really is no good excuse not to stretch and exercise properly. You can check out exercise videos for free at the local library, rent them from video stores or access free information online. You can even purchase exercise, yoga and pilates programs to download onto your iPod.

Wrist Metabolism Monitor

If you are a gadget junkie, a professional athlete or just like to have the most advanced new technology, you’ll want the Suunto t6. It is a wristwatch that calculates your heart rate, energy consumption, ventilation, oxygen consumption (VO2), respiratory rate, Training Effect and EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption). You can then wirelessly upload your data to your computer to track your progress. They even have programs that will correlate your data with sport specific training programs. They have programs for novices through professional athletes. You have to check this out, it’s cutting edge technology that can help you get better results, faster.

Work

It is critical to evaluate the proper set up of your work environment because it is often the cause of most stress injuries, such as carpal tunnel in your wrist.

Because many people spend almost half of all of their waking hours sitting at a desk, it is important that your chair, desk and other equipment help your body maintain good posture and alignment. A healthy work station involves being aware of your seating, keyboard and mouse, computer monitor position and glare, telephone position, feet position, lighting and proper positioning of your work. It is critical to evaluate the proper set up of your work environment because it is often the cause of most repetitive stress injuries.

Things like improper chair position, cradling the phone between your ear and shoulder, or straining your neck to look at your computer monitor is not a big deal every once in a while, but when you do the same repetitive motions for several hours a day, several days a week, several weeks a month and so on, you will find that your body eventually has to give and in many cases will suffer pain, discomfort, poor posture and spinal disc damage. Unfortunately, most people don’t correlate these problems to their day-to-day activity because they think it has to be caused by a specific traumatic event. That’s just not the case. Check out these articles on what you need to know about proper set up of your work environment.

Desk Chair

The basics of a healthy ergonomic workstation include a bio-mechanically correct chair to sit in. It is best if it’s adjustable to support your unique height and curves. Humanscale offers a variety of seating options designed to keep you healthy and well while you are working. These products are an investment in your health if you sit at your desk often.

A great new cost effective desk chair is an exercise ball that sits on a stand. These are terrific and very affordable. These chairs actually help you strengthen your core muscles while sitting on them. It’s like a workout while you’re working.

Headsets

If you talk on the phone regularly and for long periods of time, a headset is a great tool to prevent headaches, stiff necks and sore shoulders. If you really want a new and healthy experience, invest in a cordless headset. Being able to stand up, walk around and use your hands while talking on the phone is not only healthier, it helps you be even more productive.

Keyboard & Mouse Pads

Many computer keyboards now include wrist pads as standard accessories. There are, however, ways to upgrade and enjoy the benefits of a liquid filled or foam pad designed to comfortably support your wrists while typing and using your mouse. If you are using a computer regularly, these are worth the investment.

Lumbar Support

A support for your low back is essential to have in the chairs in which you will spend most of your time. Most furniture companies do not manufacture chairs that are actually healthy for you. Often they are hard rather than offering a cushioned seat, and the position of your spine is often very poor and sometimes even damaging. Think of having a lumbar support for your office chair, your car seat and your favorite reading chair at home. Another great idea is to have one that you can take with you when you travel on long flights or trips.

You can also find products that offer support while sitting in various positions on the floor so you can read, do homework, relax, meditate and more. There are some products that can be arranged in many different ways so that you can change your positions often and still feel comfortable and supported on the floor.

Another tool to help keep healthy alignment includes a special shaped support pillow that rests between your legs while you’re lying on your side. Such support pillows are designed to align your lower extremities in order to relieve pressure on your low back, hips and knees. It is very comfortable to sleep with and once again helps not only reduce pressure on your low back, it helps you get a better night sleep.

Another helpful item is a rectangular air filled low back pillow that you can use either behind your low back or you can sit on it. The pillow helps enhance the hydration of spinal discs, improves muscle blood circulation and helps to reduce pain while your sitting. It also simulates the effect of sitting on an exercise ball in that it activates your core muscles in order to stabilize your pelvis on the air pocket. Because of its simple design you can use it at work, at home, take it to sporting events, use it in your car and bring it on an airplane.

Monitor Aim

First it was great when computer monitors went from taking up so much desk space to the new flat panels but they are still on the desk taking up space and don’t have too many ways to adjust their position to best fit a person’s work station. Humanscale, a leader in ergonomic office furniture, offers a variety of computer monitor arms that can get your monitor off your desk. It is completely adjustable so you can move it around where you want to, when you want to. It’s a brilliant idea whose time has come.